www.Amazon.com
Superficially speaking, using this word “excellent website with horrible design and incredible function" is the best description to this website. First, there are too much stuffs congesting the main page messing it up although it uses four columns. Secondly, this website having a jumbo size advertisement and old fashion menu bar on the home page; this kind of design is wildly used on internet for decades. Obviously Amazon website quite more emphasizes on functionality than aestheticism. Maybe it was a good design many years ago and gradually became horrible design without frequently changing their design in order to catch up with the Culture Revolution. Things change. Historian likes to use the term Culture Revolution to describe something that are generally regarded as modern culture, mainstream and zeitgeist, will fade out then something else instead. We are now striving to animadvert somebody’s design; somebody else will do the same thing on us one day. I do understand that judgment is way to help improve.
Okay, let's go back to the main topic of our homework this week. Strictly speaking, there is nothing quite wrong on this web design in terms of aesthetic. It’s just a out-of-date web design with a very business style. Sometimes it is very hard to balance between fashion and formal style, best design and fastest loading speed. For that reason, I still rate this website an excellent website with five star in terms of interface design, functionality and meeting the need of audience.
First of all, in terms of functionality, everything on this website is well categorized and customers can easily find out what they are looking for by simply clicking on the menu bar. The Phone Contact function can claim to be the world's best function for internet-based business, connecting both customers and representatives via internet phone which can not only help diminish the cost, but also make oversea business more easier to do. Also, lowering prices is the reason they become the world's biggest web-based store.
Secondly, the interface is really a customer friendly design. The website can save the most current search result of each customer and display this on the main page by properly using cookie. It is very useful function even though it looks like a mass but it actually contains a bunch of value information. I cannot say everybody likes this interface design--honestly, it has no design at all--but it still belongs to a great designed in terms for the convenience of customers.
Thirdly, this website runs so fast -maybe- due to image size which are dynamically adjusted its physical sizes subject to the web page. And the image qualities are pretty nice. I believe that most customers--I am one of them--using Amazon are not for appreciating their web design but for good product with a right price and no tax required. This design meets the need of the most of their target audiences who have a clear goal only wanting to buy something through Amazon, not for judging the design.
Fourthly, although the traditional typeface lacks of extraordinary elements, it is absolutely a good design. We have to understand that Amazon website is an online store, Amazon is an online seller. What extraordinary elements are you supposed to see in a store? Store is a store, it is not a runway. The goal of a store is to try hard to attract their customer to purchase its products. Price is the king. Amazon website use white background and black color. This high contract makes the letter clear and easy to see. White is really an excellent background color which can décor or match all kind of foreground colors.
Fifthly, the navigation on Amazon website is One Click Away which is a professional term for excellent navigation design. You can go everywhere by simply one click on its menu bar wherever you are in your own account or in the Cart List.
It really is not a bad web design, but we do have ability making it better. If I were the web developer of Amazon, I should discard the entire current structure and rebuild the website with harmony color according to the Color Schedule—I will intend to use high contract and harmony. I will put all the advertisement into a separate page as the first page, which looks more emphasizing on what we are now mainly promoting than our former design. After customers click into the second page, the advertisement will be distributed to each category according to subject. This page will go by well photographed or designed icon with proper image size to increase the loading speed of the website and the visual appeal of our customers. I will keep all the current function on the new website and add Live Chat and online Phone Contact on every page—not only in the Order List page; I hate they do not put this phone contact function on every page-it means just like "do not bother me if you are not our customer yet".
www.sohu.com
Sohu China is a well-known Chinese website which my parents complain a lot. They read news from this website. It is really a horrible website in terms of interface design, functionality and meeting the need of audience.
First of all, the interface design is a mess. There is way to much information on the home page. It's not well-organized. It seems like the web developer tried to squeeze everything into the home page so that the viewers wouldn't miss anything. Also, it contains a congested typography with too many small fond sizes. This is what my parents complain the most as they have difficulty to read the home page even with glasses on.
Functionality wise, Sohu always opens new page in new windows to try to make it easier for viewers to get back to the designate page. However, after X windows have been opened, it is still difficult for the viewers to get back to the pages they desire. I found a headline that interested me and clicked into it, but it brought me to a page full of that type of news for example finance and economy, and I had to look into this page for the actual news I desired to read previously. Poor navigation design is truly one of its problems.
Sohu tries to attract all types of audience. That's why the website contains way too much information, from weather to travel, from finance to gossip. Their main purpose is to earn money from selling the spaces on its website for advertisement. After they gained certain amount of viewers, they started to accept advertizing business. Now there are even some advertizing grid that are permanent on the home page that block readers from reading the content.
Sohu neglects the important of personal account information. If you lost your password, don't worry about that. Use the Forget Password function and click Send Password to My Email. After you see the message "Email is sent". Right click the mouse and scroll down to "view source". Then the windows will open other page. The subject of the letter they sent to your email including your password and user name inside this page. Try not to use this to steal somebody's account. I will not response for this. Their internet security is at risk.
If I were their web designer, I would put internet security at first. I will use module and category to reorganize this website; cancel the pop up windows and floating advertisement; enlarge the font size; use different kind of typeface and properly apply color to make the website better.
